Thing 7: Face-to-face networks and professional organisations

This will be a short post! I’m a member of CILIP and I’ve joined LISNPN, but I’ve not used either of them for face to face networking.  As with online networks, I do wonder how people find the time to fit them in! Maybe I just need to be better organised! 

Another reason for my lack of networking is shyness, so it doesn’t come naturally to me: I admire the people who make it look easy!  However, I do feel that since graduating and beginning my new job that I am gaining in confidence, so perhaps in the future this will change! I get the impression from reading a few blogs that there are people out there who feel the same, so this does make me feel better about my lack of networking.  

Also, as I’m currently a library assistant rather than fully fledged librarian I do wonder if this networking and attending conferences lark is for me: I feel as if at this stage in my career I don’t have a lot to contribute and would be out of my depth. I know there must be some advantage to it, so I will have to make more of an effort – easier said than done though!

Thing 6: Online networks

Facebook used to be my social network of choice; although I still use it, I spend much more time on Twitter these days. However, this programme is inspiring me to explore alternatives, so here are my thoughts…

  

Linkedin

I signed up to this a while ago, but to be honest I’ve not used it and hadn’t added much to my profile. So last week I took another look and added some more information. However, I’m not sure how useful it will be: it seems to be primarily a self-promotion tool, and as I’m not looking for a job I can’t see its relevance.  Also, as I’m newly qualified, I don’t feel I have much in the way of specialities to add. Hopefully this will change… I have joined a couple of groups, and keep receiving lots of emails so I’m wondering if this will result in my having even more information that I can’t keep up to date with. As with so many of these social networks, I think I need time to gauge its usefulness, so for now I think I’ll reserve my judgement.

Facebook

I’ve used Facebook for a while.  In my opinion, it’s a more personal, social space and I don’t use it for professional networking. I use it to stay in touch with friends and share photos. However, I did find it helpful to stay in touch with other students while doing my MA.  As I studied by distance learning, it was a good way to see how everyone was doing.

LISNPN

I joined LISNPN earlier this year. I have found some of the resources useful, such as advice on interviews. Although I haven’t used it at all for networking, this is something I can see myself using much more in the future.

Librarians as Teachers network

I don’t teach in my job, so at the moment this isn’t really relevant to me.  However I may revisit it in the future.

CILIP communities

Although I’m a member of CILIP, I have to admit I didn’t know this existed! I haven’t had time to explore it fully yet, so I may go back to it at some point. 

Google+

I’ve recently joined, but I think for me it’s still early days.  It seems to be popular with librarians, so I think I’ll definitely keep my eye on this one.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are too many networks out there and it’s impossible to keep up with them all. So I think for now I’m going to stick with Twitter and hope I’m not missing out on anything…

Thing 5: Reflective practice

I’m not in the habit of reflecting so this may be one long ramble!

Thing 1

I enjoyed setting up a blog for Thing 1. I think it’ll be a really useful tool to help me keep track of what I’ve learned. In the past, I haven’t been good at keep track of training I’ve done, so this could be a good way of doing that. Plus I’ve just started blogging at work, so this will be good practice.

Thing 2

I’ve also enjoyed looking at other participant’s blogs, though it can get very distracting! Initially I was somewhat random when viewing blogs, so now I tend to check out updates posted on Twitter with the cpd23 hashtag. Although it’s time consuming, it’s a good way to keep up to date and find information you might not discover elsewhere, so I’m definitely going to keep it up

While I posted comments for Thing 2, I think I’m still very much at the lurking stage and need to participate more. I must get out of the mindset that I have nothing interesting to say or it’s been said already. It also makes me realise how far I have to go, as there are some very articulate, passionate people out there.

Thing 3

I’m still reluctant about the concept of a personal brand and have been happy to be inconspicuous, even though I realise that this isn’t really possible if you’re using social media. Plus I can see how having a consistent image could be useful for networking. So at some point I will get round to adding a photo to my blog and updating the one on Twitter  -  if I can find one I like that is!

Thing 4

My favourite thing so far has been Thing 4. However, I feel that even though I’ve been using Twitter for a while, again I need to engage more and jump into the conversation. 

Although I had previously used Google Reader, revisiting it for Thing 4 inspired me to try out alternatives. So I’ve been playing with Netvibes a bit too. I’m going to see what else is out there before I commit! When I have more time I need to look at my feeds and see what is relevant and what I can discard.

Finally, I haven’t given up playing with Pushnote just yet, despite my initial reservations.  Now that more people are using it, it may become more relevant. We’ll see…

Anyway, I’ve written more than I thought I would for this post, so maybe I can be reflective after all!

Thing 4: Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

Some thoughts on Twitter, Google Reader and Pushnote

Twitter

Initially I didn’t see the point of Twitter and wondered what all the fuss was about; why would I want to know what some celebrity had for breakfast? Nevertheless, to satisfy my curiosity I joined in February 2009.  Gradually I began to use it more, mostly lurking and not tweeting myself. Subsequently I decided to write about Web 2.0 for my Masters dissertation and set up a work Twitter as an experiment.  I wanted to gauge how we could use it to communicate with our students. It was slow to take off, but I think it’s been quite successful.  However most of the time I’m on my own Twitter @Chrissie72.  I like the idea of a ‘profersonal’ approach, so I don’t tend to separate work and non-work tweets. Thanks to this programme, I’m hoping to use it more as a professional tool to follow and communicate with other library folks. Don’t think that’ll stop me from tweeting rubbish though! 

Personally I love Twitter and find it addictive but manageable: I use lists and hashtags to cope with information overload. I think it helps me keep up to date and I feel that I’m more likely to find useful information via Twitter.

Google Reader

I’ve probably used Google Reader for a year or two. Again I started to use this while studying; the idea was that I could keep up to date with Library and work related stuff without having to look at loads of websites.  I was quite good at first and checked it every day, but I feel I’ve let it slip a bit now. Maybe I have too many feeds; I always think I can go back and look at the important stuff later, but never do. Plus I’m more likely to read something I’ve seen on Twitter than Google Reader; it just feels more immediate to me. Maybe I just haven’t worked out how to use it efficiently yet…

Pushnote

I’m not too impressed with Pushnote so far. I’ve had a bit of a play with it but not sure that I see the point of it. If anyone can convince me otherwise, feel free…

Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

I don’t think I’ve ever been very good at promoting myself, so the idea of having a brand seems a little uncomfortable to me.  Although I’ve used social media for a while, I don’t think I’ve really used it much for professional purposes. Maybe doing this programme will change that.

When I joined Twitter and started my blog, I didn’t consider the importance of a name or identity; my Twitter name is just a nickname, though my real name is on there too and my blog name is a case of ‘does what it says on the tin’.  I like the idea of a ‘profersonal’ approach as it seems much less stuffy and formal to me. I would say 99% of my tweets are inane drivel anyway, but I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything I wouldn’t want people to read.  Maybe I should be more cautious! To be honest I was more interested in look of my blog than the name; I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing with different back grounds. In an effort to more consistent I’ve used it as my Twitter background too. Maybe that’s my attempt to start a more professional online brand.

My Google search was predictable; I have a common name so the top two results were a couple of actresses. I gave up looking for any results relating to me after page 12.  However when I added ‘library’ to my search, my Twitter page was the top result! Not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing… 

Perhaps I should give more thought to how I could improve my online brand, but it would be interesting to hear what other people have to say about that. Any thoughts please let me know.